4
Thursday, March 7, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Jobless soldiers
Four student employees called to war lose jobs; University unfair in handling 'burden' vacancies
Student employees called to the Persian Gulf could be without jobs when they return to KU. University administrators refused to hold their jobs for them, claiming that their jobs were vital to University operation and that the vacancies would be a burden if they were not filled.
At least four student employees, who are military reservists, were called to active duty during the Persian Gulf War. The University, citing a legal loophole, filled the job vacancies.
The U.S. Code of Veterans' Benefits requires that states' employees be restored to former jobs, or a job of like seniority, status and pay, unless they are temporary employees.
Rose Marino, associate general counsel to the University, said that KU policy was based on that law and that student employees were considered temporary.
Marino said that the decision not to hold the positions for the students serving in the
gulf was not made hastily and that an attempt was made to meet the requirements of the law.
Certainly, the requirements of the law were met. The University is not bound by law to keep the jobs open. But neither is it prohibited from holding the positions for the students when they return.
It would be reasonable for KU to temporarily fill the positions until the students can return from the gulf. Those students did not quit. They were called to war. Their situation is unique. They did not want to leave their jobs.
Keeping jobs open for students who have been sent to war is not unreasonable.
Losing those jobs could cause the students to lose the opportunity for continuing their educations. And being sent to war is surely more of a burden for the students than it would be a burden for the University to keep four jobs that pay student wages.
Rod Griffin for the editorial board
Psychological care
New mental health unit will offer better services
No more guesswork will be required for students looking for campus psychological health care.
A merger of the University Counseling Center in Bailey Hall and the mental health clinic in Watkins Memorial Health Center will result in a more comprehensive health care program.
Students no longer will look at the units as competing options. Instead, the best of both services will be combined under one roof.
Frank DeSalvo is the director of what will be known as CAPS — Counseling and Psychological Services. The new unit will be housed in Watkins.
"They (the two currently separate departments) could pull their resources together," he said.
DeSalvo also said that Watkins would offer both physical and emotional help, making the health care center better equipped to care for both aspects of students' needs.
The new department would emphasize preventive mental health education. Instead of waiting until a full-blown problem arises, students may be able to address their problems at an earlier stage.
The new center also will function as an information center, providing students with useful knowledge concerning their mental well-being.
Essentially, CAPS will offer an expanded and improved version of the psychological services available now.
Students who need counseling will be able to receive better, more convenient care.
Tiffany Harness for the editorial board
Reluctantly united
Other Voices
If the Persian Gulf War reminded Israelis of the threat to their existence from an Arab state, it did the same to many Arab states To Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab states in the coalition, it seemed to be, not the old bukher, Israel, but the enemy within, Iraq.
A sense of being in the same boat, though never acknowledged publicly, must have brought Saudi Arabians and Israelis together as they came under attack from Baghdad's Scud missiles.
For Israelis, the war was yet another indication of the fundamental fact that, for good or bad, God will have to live with Arabs and will have to live with Arabs.
From the Straits Times, Singapore
Keating Five finale
After nearly two years of inquiry and deliberation, the Senate Ethics Committee announced its conclusions . . . about the famous Keating Five. Declared the committee, led by Alabama's Howell Helfell: All five senators who served as president of official duties with their financial connections to indicted B&L moral Charles Keating. But only one of the five, Alan Cranston of California, engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct that might — repeat might — lead to disciplinary action by the full Senate.
Cynics are entitled to offer their own interpretation of events. The ailing Craston is the only senator who has announced his intention to retire in 1922, and so might have been considered expendable . . .
Keating had the habit of making five-and-six figure contributions to the campaign treasures of senate and House committees in the banking-regulation process.
Once again, the Senate would rather protect its own than sweep its house clean.
From the Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin
The estimated 100,000 Muscovites who poured into the city's streets Sunday (Feb. 24) in a spontaneous demonstration of support for Yeltsin Veltiun ought to have been earning to hard line communists.
That didn't deter Mikhail Gorbachev from launching a rhetorical counterattack. The Soviet president ... angrily denounced ... Yeltsin and charged that he and his team were "were" being attacked by their unrestful attacks on the president and the central government.
The Moscow demonstration came a day after the Soviet government staged an official rally by
Kremlin distorts rally
After . . . Yeltsin appeared on nationwide television to demand that Mikhail Gorbachev immediately resign, hard line members of the Russian Republic's Supreme Soviet denounced . . . Yeltsin and called for proceedings to have him impeached.
about 40,000 party faithful, who halfheartedly chanted pro-Gorbachev and anti-Yeltsi slogans.
Gorbachieu, or his allies, to tarnish Yeltsin's image. The prep-
pension placed barely lettered slogans gave the lie to Kremin deplays of the rally as a spontaneous outpouring of popular will.
The pro-Gorbachev rally . . . was an embarrassment to the Kremmlin and a transparent effort by . . . Gorbachov or his allies to tarnish
The six-month diversion of war is over. The president can't afford to spend much time basking in the glow of his success. It's time to get down to the business of tackling what ails the country.
Time's a wasin'. Mr. President.
You showed your deftness in handling a foreign crisis. But domestic battles still rage — and your country is on the losing end.
From the News & Courier, Charleston, S.C.
From the Delaware County Daily Times, Primos, Pa.
Sports pay-per-view invasion strikes nerves of faithful fans
I really bothered Dale Read that he had to work during the Superbowl
Read, a Lawrence resident, works hard at a local convenience store and sometimes averages more than 50 hours a week. so annual events such as the Superbowl are special because he him a chance to relax and have fun.
Read had to miss the bowl this year because he couldn't afford to take off from work, but soon, he may not be able to afford to watch it at gill.
Television experts see pay-per-view as the way of the future, but NFL commissioner Paul Taglione said that the whole plan was experimental and that the Superbowl would not be touched until the year 2000.
The National Football League announced this month that it would introduce pay-per-view telecasts of regular season games possibly by 1982 and certainly by 1983. The Super Bowl, the league said, is not far behind.
Soon, even that will go the way of professional boxing.
Well, income tax also was introduced as experimental and the year 2000 is only nine years away.
Rob
Wheat
Guest columnist
Something closer than that far-off Superbowl is the 1992 Olympics, one of the few events that still can be seen without having to subscribe to cable, something that only half of America can afford to do.
package of Olympic events for pay-per-view in addition to the 150 hours of coverage they normally will offer and may provide a cable to see pay-per-view events.
NBC will offer a separate, select,
CBS has sold $50 million worth of Olympic coverage to Turner Broadcasting Network, in addition to $50 million of their earlier CBS sales to TNT, years earlier.
Why will sports soon be seen only on pay-per-view? Partly because of guys like Jose Canso.
To pay his salary, owners have had to squeeze about as much money out of fans through ticket prices as they could. But once television got into the act, there became an abundance of freachie "players" who could use to get "freachie" players.
Soon the monster the owners and television created began to get out of control.
When CBS began gobbling up sports more than two years ago, advertisers were paying high prices, and the economy was rolling along.
So, the network's executives happily wrote out a $1 billion check for the college basketball tournament
and another $1 billion for major league baseball.
Today advertisers are cautious, the number of viewers has leveled off, and the economy is rolling backward — right over CBS. They are stuck with more than $3 billion in sports programming.
The networks gambled on a ratings booster by paying high prices to television sports events. The owners took that money to the roulette wheel and bet they could build a winning team and best the players at whatever price.
In the end, it will be the fan that loses.
The networks now are turning to cable and pay-per-view services to bail them out, and soon discussion about last night's game will be limited to the country clubs and golf courses of America.
These games mean so much to the nation. For the prisoners and the hospitalized, sports are a chance to forget. For the working class, they're a chance to relax and have fun. They've overseas saw sports as a link to home.
There may come a time, if the nation wants to watch the World Series, the Final Four, or the Superbowl, it had better be ready to pay
Or maybe we will have to apply to see these shows, much the way we would apply for food stamps.
Rob Wheat is an Overland Park senior majoring in journalism.
Department of Defense should change its policies toward gays
The main topic for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is assembly meeting yesterday was the opening of the classes, should be counted for credit.
The action is in response to the Department of Defense policy that excludes homosexuals and those with homosexual tendencies from serving in the armed forces of the United States. This issue should be discussed further.
Eric
Patterson
Guest columnist
The policy of the Department of Defense that excludes homosexuals from service is discriminatory. It excludes a portion of society from service for what it believes or how it perceives the world to be much greater if the words "jew" or "Black" were substituted for "homosexual."
U. S. and coalition forces just defeated the Iraqi army and liberated Iraq, but their oppressive Iraq occupation. It is quite ironic that the freedoms for
which the armed forces of the United States fought and died to protect in Kuwait, such as freedom of choice, resistance to violence and want to help defend those freedoms.
Several people attending the meeting expressed the fact that a gay or lesbian was in no way hindered from taking an ROTC class. However, saying that one can take ROTC classes and not receive an officer's commission is similar to saying that one can take classes in the college or a professional school and not receive the degree.
Also, another fact to consider is that some may claim that ROTC is free and open to all, no matter what
'The outcry, I believe,
would be much greater if the words "Jew" or
"Black" were substituted for "homosexual."
their sexual orientations. Unfortunately, ROTC is under the jurisdiction and control of the Department of Health and Human Services these policies support discrimination.
This fact is truly aborrent. Discrimination in any form cannot be tolerated. If ROTC is to remain on college campuses much longer, swift and direct action must be taken. Elimination of ROTC credit coupled with direct appeals to peer institutions may help the moment of Defense and Congress may yield positive results. Something must be done.
Eric Patterson is a Tonganoxie senior majoring in American history.
KANSAN STAFF
CHRIS SIRON
Editor
RICH CORNELL Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
Editors
by David Rosenfield
AUDRA LANGFORD Business manager
Editor
News  Melanie Mathes
Editorial  Tiffany Harness
Planning  Holly M. Neuman
Campus  Jennifer Reynolds,
Pam Solner
Sports  Aaron Comfortall
Photography  Keith Trapp
Graphics  Melissa Unterberg
Features  Jill Harington
DRAKE ENGINFORD
Business manager
MINDI LUND
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
job descriptions
Jampa sales mgr. Carmen Shewhu
Regional sales mgr. Carmen Dresch
National sales mgr. Jennifer Claxton
Co-op sales mgr. Christine Muster
Production mgrs. Rich Harbarger
Marketing director. Katie Sander
Creative director. Katie Sander
Classified manager. Chrissy Hatsa
Kim Crowder
Letters should be double, spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas will not be contacted.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, goose column and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staffer-Fin Hall.
Sketch